Four (former) Interns and the Employers Who Won't Rehire Them

My days as a mental_floss intern are over. My adoring fans may have noticed that the "Intern" has been dropped from my byline and my workload has decreased to "occasional contributor" status. Unlike these guys, though, I left my internship on my own terms and Mangesh and Jason appreciated my work enough to let me stay on. Here's a look at four interns who didn't do as well during their employment.

The Employer: Roseanne Barr

First off, who knew that Roseanne offered an internship? She may not anymore, though, after her experience this summer. She had to fire her intern, whose identity is still shrouded in secrecy, in early August after they posted some obscene comments on her MySpace page. The rambling posts (check out one here), which were written from Roseanne's point of view, touched on her desire to get a shotgun and smell like urine, "like old ladies are meant to." Roseanne responded swiftly, firing the intern and apologizing to fans, reminding them that she only posts on her official blog. Three hours, later, though, she wrote another jokey post, saying that the fired intern had also stolen her sex tape and she was offering up a reward for its return. I'll allow time for you to get rid of the vomit taste from your mouth.

The Employer: The State of Ohio

It was a big deal earlier this summer when the news broke that a computer tape with the names, Social Security numbers and possibly bank account information for 1.1 million Ohio residents. After some investigating, the state managed to figure out who was responsible for losing the tape: Jared Ilovar, a 22-year-old intern. Turns out he had taken the tape home with him and left it in his car one night. Unfortunately, this happened to be the same night he was the victim of a random car theft. As the intern working on the new payroll and purchasing system, he was given the glamorous task of taking home one of two computer tapes, a job that really belongs to a network administrator. Ilovar was fired by governor Ted Strickland (hey, at least get fired by the big guy) after refusing to resign and still holds out hope that the state will consider taking him back. Strickland has assured that they won't.

The employer: Wes Anderson

Matthew Gray Gubler is the rare intern who's bumbling actually translated into a better job. Gubler described himself as "maybe the worst intern in history," after working for director Wes Anderson. He's related tales of trying to buy couscous without know what it was (it's this, in case you're ever in the same boat) and trying to deliver a large painting to Bill Murray after drinking. Still, Gubler didn't get fired, he got a perm. And then he got a role in Anderson's movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, playing, of course, a bumbling intern.

The Employer: Rep. Denny Rehberg, R Montana

As the lone representative from Montana, Rehberg must have been a little hard up for finding help, so he hired Todd Shriber, a Texas Christian University graduate with less-than-stellar grades to be a press aide. Shriber apparently wasn't happy with his grades, so he took steps to fix them. To the embarrassment of the Congressman, those steps involved contacting attrition.org to find hackers who would break into the TCU system and change his GPA. The supposed hackers, "Lyger" and "Jericho," led Shriber along for 22 email messages, then published the entire exchange. The last email had Lyger warning "we are SO busted." Shriber was ultimately fired and apologized for acting so out of character. His GPA remains as low as it was before, but that probably won't be the thing that doesn't get him hired.